Bingo. All of this for twenty years or more of "pain" whilst voluntarily giving ourselves less relevance and influence with our closest neighbours, allies and trading partners. This is a colossal waste of time and energy - we had much more serious problems to focus on than this.

Mark

Hmmm.... in the EU quarters some would like to see the back of the UK as they are regarded as the one preventing closer integration, the EU Army, not joining the Euro, Schengen etc etc etc, so when you say loosing relevance, is that in the minds of the UK or actual reality?The whole Brexit issue is a result of DC trying and failing to get adjustments, indeed some on the EU side say they gave up too much to DC during his travels, so....perhaps reality is not what it seems?

Some probably would and some wouldn't. The desire for closer integration within the EU doesn't seem to be universal. Hard to say but regardless of the above, we have a certain weight within the union if by nothing else than population like, GDP and contribution to the budget. Plus, it must cause concern that once one leaves, it could increase the probability of others wanting to leave. I know we've been a pain (to my frustration) but I can't believe we've been the only member to try the patience of others.

I'd also suggest that the issue of Brexit is actually down to DC putting his party above country.

Britain’s departure from the EU robs Pakistan of a key ally in its fight to preserve preferential trading terms with the EU.

Since 2014, Pakistan has been the leading beneficiary of the EU’s preferential trading program for “vulnerable” developing countries, known as the Generalized System of Preferences Plus (GSP+). The scheme grants manufacturers, particularly Pakistani textilemakers, tariff-free access to Europe in exchange for Islamabad implementing reforms on human rights, working conditions, climate change and good governance.

Britain prides itself on having won this sweetheart deal for its former colony, a country of 210 million people, where many families have relatives living in the U.K. “It was us, Britain, who ensured Pakistan got tariff-free access to the European Union,” former Prime Minister David Cameron said at a campaign event during the 2014 European election.

British members of the European Parliament, who played a key role in lobbying for Pakistan’s GSP+ status, reckon that Pakistan would be increasingly isolated after Brexit. They said that they had to overcome resistance from EU heavyweights back in 2014, and warned that antipathy could well return when GSP+ comes up for renewal in January 2020.

Some goods news coming from the Brexit. The Dutch government will start hiriing additoinal customs employees as of next week. It hopes to hire between 750 and 930 additional staff in the next few months.

Some goods news coming from the Brexit. The Dutch government will start hiriing additoinal customs employees as of next week. It hopes to hire between 750 and 930 additional staff in the next few months.

While hard Brexit seems more and more probable, that recruitment is needed and made also in France Spain and so on because any check will have a huge impact. People are just confusing a Free Trade Agreement and no border.

Some goods news coming from the Brexit. The Dutch government will start hiriing additoinal customs employees as of next week. It hopes to hire between 750 and 930 additional staff in the next few months.

I fail to see where the good news is in this.

The good news is that 750 - 930 will have a job who otherwise would't have a job. The bad news is that the money will have to be paid by either the importer, exporter and/or those who pay taxes..... However, as someone from the union mentioned, they've prioritised hiring custom staff, something which should have been done regardless of Brexit as the Ducth government downsized the custom departments i recent years.

I’m interested as to why you missed the important bit where it said AZ are preparing for a possible hard Brexit but are not moving out of the UK. Equally curious is your failure to mention that their biggest R&D centre in the world is being built in ENGLAND.

You also fail to mention the AZ’s chairman’s quote “Johansson noted that he finds it difficult to believe that there will be a hard Brexit, but there is nonetheless a risk of an agreement not being reached“

Some goods news coming from the Brexit. The Dutch government will start hiriing additoinal customs employees as of next week. It hopes to hire between 750 and 930 additional staff in the next few months.

So why does it need these extra staff, to perform passport checks that are needed anyway.

Some goods news coming from the Brexit. The Dutch government will start hiriing additoinal customs employees as of next week. It hopes to hire between 750 and 930 additional staff in the next few months.

So why does it need these extra staff, to perform passport checks that are needed anyway.

Customs officers usually don´t check passports, the Belastingdienst will have plenty of extra work.

Some goods news coming from the Brexit. The Dutch government will start hiriing additoinal customs employees as of next week. It hopes to hire between 750 and 930 additional staff in the next few months.

So why does it need these extra staff, to perform passport checks that are needed anyway.

Customs officers usually don´t check passports, the Belastingdienst will have plenty of extra work.

best regardsThomas

Everytime I've flown to a EU Airport from the UK i've had my passport checked by an officer or an e gate. We aren't in the schengen area.

Some goods news coming from the Brexit. The Dutch government will start hiriing additoinal customs employees as of next week. It hopes to hire between 750 and 930 additional staff in the next few months.

So why does it need these extra staff, to perform passport checks that are needed anyway.

Is this question serious? All goods imported to the EU from the UK will have to be processed by customs. And that even if a FTA would be reached. The only way to avoid the need for increased customs agenda would be to stay or moving to Norwegian model. But then, why Brexit?

The article is a littlle bit one sided as the hiring of the additional customs staff stems from a document published by the Dutch government a few weeks ago. This document outlined the impact of the Brexit for The Netherlands and advised the Dutch govenrment to start hiring asap.

sevenair wrote:

The Dutch have also refused to bankroll the ailing bloc and won’t be increasing their contributions to cover the loss of one of the EU’s biggest net contributors. Oh dear. How sad.

It seems you don't follow EU politics that much. The discussion is about the fact that the Dutch want the the EU budget to be lowered after Brexit and thus not pay anything more. However, Merkel and Macron seem to prefer to expand the EU budget as the want to increase EU's role in Europe.

The article is a littlle bit one sided as the hiring of the additional customs staff stems from a document published by the Dutch government a few weeks ago. This document outlined the impact of the Brexit for The Netherlands and advised the Dutch govenrment to start hiring asap.

sevenair wrote:

The Dutch have also refused to bankroll the ailing bloc and won’t be increasing their contributions to cover the loss of one of the EU’s biggest net contributors. Oh dear. How sad.

It seems you don't follow EU politics that much. The discussion is about the fact that the Dutch want the the EU budget to be lowered after Brexit and thus not pay anything more. However, Merkel and Macron seem to prefer to expand the EU budget as the want to increase EU's role in Europe.

Merkel and Macron will get their way and will simply force the others to pay up.

One issue is whether the UK will have to pay for the additional economic stimulus that the EU economy will be receiving, so if the UK has to pay for the relocation of EU offices / bodies in the UK they may as well pay for the new staff that must be employed to process goods and services moving between the EU and the UK.

Is this question serious? All goods imported to the EU from the UK will have to be processed by customs. And that even if a FTA would be reached. The only way to avoid the need for increased customs agenda would be to stay or moving to Norwegian model. But then, why Brexit?

...because one cannot cherry pick staying in the customs union while leaving the EU, or the jurisdiction of the ECJ or the host of other items that the UK wants to have while notbeing a member of the EU.I think the longer this goes on the more people accept that the Brexiters had it right from the start, full out the cabinet with Brexiters and go hard Brexit, imagine how far along theprocess would be now...versus what is taking place now with a cabinet deliberately built split down the middle doing battle each day.Once those battles are done it starts again the House, then the Lords, the number of avenues to ensure that the interest of the minority side is heard is not weak or limited.

Indeed. We knew we were voting to leave the SM and ECJ would no longer have supremacy over our courts.

Hard remain Theresa May and her remainers are trying to water down Brexit and have cake and eat it.

Hard remain tell us today that Brexit will lead to an increase in terrorism. 7/7 happened while we were in the EU. So did Ariana Grande attack, London attacks. Paris, Brussels, Nice, Berlin, Barcelona, Stockholm and Paris 2 all happened whilst still in the EU. The EU doesn’t have the best track record of protecting against terrorism yet we are to believe that terrorism will surge because we are leaving?

Now allegedly IRA terrorism will surge due to Brexit despite the current Stormomt situation having very little to do with Brexit. I believe the latest spat was due to the use of the Irish language and not Brexit.

This is in addition to us being told once again that Brexit will cause cancer increases by the EU Commission as we will allegedly lower our very high safety standards due to Brexit.

Last edited by sevenair on Wed Feb 21, 2018 7:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

Merkel and Macron will get their way and will simply force the others to pay up.

Wow.. you really have no clue how the EU works, right? Those decision are made by consensus. Germany and France couldn´t force anything against Cyprus will....

sevenair wrote:

Indeed. We knew we were voting to leave the SM and ECJ would no longer have supremacy over our courts.

Considering that a little less than half the people voting "leave" wanted to stay in the single market, you seem to be ill informed as usual.

Hard remain Theresa May and her remainers are trying to water down Brexit and have cake and eat it.

Hard remain Theresa May? WTH? Is your idea of a hart Brexit to nuke the continent or how do you come to the conclusion that she is for remain?

best regardsThomas

The EU have previous when it comes to getting its own way. It always does. It always wants more money. It always wants l expand. It will get what it wants.

Funny that you claim that nothing in the EU happens without the concensus of all 28 member states. Remind me, what has the EU threatened to do with member states who refused to take refugees who they didn’t ask for, didn’t invite and don’t have the resources for?

We were told many many times that leaving the EU meant leaving the SM and with a near 8% margin we voted to leave the EU. https://youtu.be/9fDn0MvcHQ4

Theresa the Appeaser is well known as a hard remainer. She’s surrounded herself with largely hard remainers.

I’ve made it quite clear that I wish no harm on the EU and want a close relationship with the EU nations and the EU as a whole. But don’t let that stop your usual condescending hyperbole. You still don’t get the notion that it’s precisely that which caused Brexit, Trump & keep Tories in power. You’re too quick to insult & shout down anyone with an opposing view and to get personal.

The EU have previous when it comes to getting its own way. It always does. It always wants more money. It always wants l expand. It will get what it wants.

"The EU" is its member states. If the member states wants the EU to have more money, it in deed gets more money.

Funny that you claim that nothing in the EU happens without the concensus of all 28 member states. Remind me, what has the EU threatened to do with member states who refused to take refugees

There are treaties in place, if a member states doesn´t agree with the commissions interpretation of those treaties, they have the ECJ to sattle that question. Oh.. wait.. they did....and lost.

who they didn’t ask for, didn’t invite and don’t have the resources for?

They all signed and ratified the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees on their own account. No one forced them too ... OMG, the EU is forcing its member states to fulfill treaty obligations.. how nasty of them.

We were told many many times that leaving the EU meant leaving the SM

trying to rewrite history, aren´t you. The leave campaign was pretty positive that access to the common market will remain 100% intact, which it only can inside the single market. The big, fat chunk of leave voters that wanted to stay in the common market just fell for the lie.

and with a near 8% margin we voted to leave the EU.

51.9% to 48.1% isn´t exactly 8%.

You still don’t get the notion that it’s precisely that which caused Brexit, Trump & keep Tories in power..

Xenophibia and a hell lot of lies caused Trump, kept the Tories in Power and is responsible for Brexit as well. If they could have won fair and square they wouldn´t have needed all the lying.

As a side note, Brexit has already wiped out 20 Billion worth in GDP growth, given the UK´s 40% public spending ratio this means that you´ve already lost your net payments to the EU in domestic tax revenue even before Brexit even happened. Hey, you can send zero extra pound per week to the NHS...

We were told many many times that leaving the EU meant leaving the SM and with a near 8% margin we voted to leave the EU. https://youtu.be/9fDn0MvcHQ4

..and the leave campaign said that they were lies..part of "Project Fear," didn't they?

I struggle to see much upside to the road we are travelling down. It feels like such a distraction away from serious issues that we face such as those with the NHS, homelessness, education etc. but all of the bandwidth is taken up by something that looks like it will shrink our economy (or at least stunt growth) for a significant period, cost jobs and reduce or infringe upon some of my freedoms and rights that I currently have.

I'd like to be able to read something from a reputable news source that tells me how well the Brexit negotiations are going. It was meant to be easily done in a morning over a cup of tea I believe according to (I think) Liam Fox. All I see is from pro-Brexit media that it's going badly because of the EU being bullies, and the pro-Remain media blame the government for our current position. Where is the good news? Is there any?

Finally, we should be demanding that the government share in full the studies that they have on the impact of Brexit. If they forecast milk and honey, great! If it's bad news, share it. As a population, we took a vote based on the information we had. If that information changes or develops, it's important we are able to see it.

Mark

Last edited by bananaboy on Wed Feb 21, 2018 8:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

The EU have previous when it comes to getting its own way. It always does. It always wants more money. It always wants l expand. It will get what it wants.

"The EU" is its member states. If the member states wants the EU to have more money, it in deed gets more money.

Funny that you claim that nothing in the EU happens without the concensus of all 28 member states. Remind me, what has the EU threatened to do with member states who refused to take refugees

There are treaties in place, if a member states doesn´t agree with the commissions interpretation of those treaties, they have the ECJ to sattle that question. Oh.. wait.. they did....and lost.

who they didn’t ask for, didn’t invite and don’t have the resources for?

They all signed and ratified the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees on their own account. No one forced them too ... OMG, the EU is forcing its member states to fulfill treaty obligations.. how nasty of them.

We were told many many times that leaving the EU meant leaving the SM

trying to rewrite history, aren´t you. The leave campaign was pretty positive that access to the common market will remain 100% intact, which it only can inside the single market. The big, fat chunk of leave voters that wanted to stay in the common market just fell for the lie.

and with a near 8% margin we voted to leave the EU.

51.9% to 48.1% isn´t exactly 8%.

You still don’t get the notion that it’s precisely that which caused Brexit, Trump & keep Tories in power..

Xenophibia and a hell lot of lies caused Trump, kept the Tories in Power and is responsible for Brexit as well. If they could have won fair and square they wouldn´t have needed all the lying.

As a side note, Brexit has already wiped out 20 Billion worth in GDP growth, given the UK´s 40% public spending ratio this means that you´ve already lost your net payments to the EU in domestic tax revenue even before Brexit even happened. Hey, you can send zero extra pound per week to the NHS...

best regardsThomas

You’re getting percentages and percentage points mixed up my friend.

The NHS doesn’t deserve a penny more. If I thought it would then I probably would have voted remain. Extra money for the NHS was never promised luckily.

Xenophobia. Yawn? World leaders, governments, the entire entertainment industry, IMF, IFS all told us the sky would fail if we dared leave. We still voted to leave. Even Macron admitted that it would be likely that the French would vote to leave if he gave them the vote.

Perhaps if the remain camp tried to rub a positive campaign instead of promising us Armageddon if we left then perhaps the outcome would have been different. When you promise recession, depression, house price crash, mass unemployment, terrorism, war and cancer all at the same time then people become very cynical of the whole thing. If the EU was so great ten surelt they would have had no problem trying to sell it and promote to the people. In essence they did no such thing. It was project fear, project fear and more project fear.

Access to the single market and being in the single market are two different things. Just ask Canada. It was made clear that leaving the EU meant leaving the SM but the that doesn’t mean not being able to access it. We already pay billions to be part of the SM and all of our products and standards currently need the protocols necessary to trade with the SM.

Just like yesterday we had people writing off UK travellers accounting for 13% of travellers (the 3rd biggest, 2nd biggest in terms of long overseas trips within the EU and the biggest by far source of visitors to Spain) I doubt very much the EU would do well to put barriers in place for UK companies to buy EU products and vice versa.

Access to the single market and being in the single market are two different things. Just ask Canada. It was made clear that leaving the EU meant leaving the SM but the that doesn’t mean not being able to access it. We already pay billions to be part of the SM and all of our products and standards currently need the protocols necessary to trade with the SM.

Just like yesterday we had people writing off UK travellers accounting for 13% of travellers (the 3rd biggest, 2nd biggest in terms of long overseas trips within the EU and the biggest by far source of visitors to Spain) I doubt very much the EU would do well to put barriers in place for UK companies to buy EU products and vice versa.

Products will surely go back and forth pretty much unimpeded. Customs infrastructure will be a major PITA though, and any delay will hit British industries.

Services though, that one will hurt.

Glad to see there's still a few of the "they need us more than we need them" tribe. Thought they were a dying breed.

Glad to see there's still a few of the "they need us more than we need them" tribe. Thought they were a dying breed.

I never said that at all.

But there will be severe consequences on both sides should things not go well. I know most people on here want Brexit to fail but the repercussions would be felt both here and on foreign shores. To deny that is madness.

Glad to see there's still a few of the "they need us more than we need them" tribe. Thought they were a dying breed.

I never said that at all.

But there will be severe consequences on both sides should things not go well. I know most people on here want Brexit to fail but the repercussions would be felt both here and on foreign shores. To deny that is madness.

Stopped just short of it, but it usually comes with the "remainers are sabotaging Brexit" as an advance excuse.

Out of curiosity, are you on the Rees-Mogg boat of hard Brexit, right now? What's your vision of an ideal Brexit?

Glad to see there's still a few of the "they need us more than we need them" tribe. Thought they were a dying breed.

I never said that at all.

But there will be severe consequences on both sides should things not go well. I know most people on here want Brexit to fail but the repercussions would be felt both here and on foreign shores. To deny that is madness.

Stopped just short of it, but it usually comes with the "remainers are sabotaging Brexit" as an advance excuse.

Out of curiosity, are you on the Rees-Mogg boat of hard Brexit, right now? What's your vision of an ideal Brexit?

JRM is a back bencher on a select committee with no power other than to scrutinise and question the dept for exoting the EU only. I’m on the boat which provides us with a constructive, cooperative and close relationship with the EU but one that is prepared to walk away from a bad deal and I’m of the opinion that remainers both domestically and abroad do want Brexit to fail. Not sure if that puts me in JRM’s boat or not.

Glad to see there's still a few of the "they need us more than we need them" tribe. Thought they were a dying breed.

I never said that at all.

But there will be severe consequences on both sides should things not go well. I know most people on here want Brexit to fail but the repercussions would be felt both here and on foreign shores. To deny that is madness.

Stopped just short of it, but it usually comes with the "remainers are sabotaging Brexit" as an advance excuse.

Out of curiosity, are you on the Rees-Mogg boat of hard Brexit, right now? What's your vision of an ideal Brexit?

JRM is a back bencher whose biggest day in Brexit is sitting on a select committee with no power other than to scrutinise and question the dept for exoting the EU only. I’m on the boat which provides us with a constructive, cooperative and close relationship with the EU but one that is prepared to walk away from a bad deal and I’m of the opinion that remainers both domestically and abroad do want Brexit to fail. Not sure if that puts me in JRM’s boat or not.

But there will be severe consequences on both sides should things not go well. I know most people on here want Brexit to fail but the repercussions would be felt both here and on foreign shores. To deny that is madness.

Stopped just short of it, but it usually comes with the "remainers are sabotaging Brexit" as an advance excuse.

Out of curiosity, are you on the Rees-Mogg boat of hard Brexit, right now? What's your vision of an ideal Brexit?

JRM is a back bencher whose biggest day in Brexit is sitting on a select committee with no power other than to scrutinise and question the dept for exoting the EU only. I’m on the boat which provides us with a constructive, cooperative and close relationship with the EU

And which one is that? Canada? Norway? Switzerland? WTO?

I think we have crossed the line for vague promises long ago. Detail is what's needed right now.

Stopped just short of it, but it usually comes with the "remainers are sabotaging Brexit" as an advance excuse.

Out of curiosity, are you on the Rees-Mogg boat of hard Brexit, right now? What's your vision of an ideal Brexit?

JRM is a back bencher whose biggest day in Brexit is sitting on a select committee with no power other than to scrutinise and question the dept for exoting the EU only. I’m on the boat which provides us with a constructive, cooperative and close relationship with the EU

And which one is that? Canada? Norway? Switzerland? WTO?

Not the Norway or Swiss model. Possibly more like Canada. Possibly some kind of hybrid.

JRM is a back bencher whose biggest day in Brexit is sitting on a select committee with no power other than to scrutinise and question the dept for exoting the EU only. I’m on the boat which provides us with a constructive, cooperative and close relationship with the EU

And which one is that? Canada? Norway? Switzerland? WTO?

Not the Norway or Swiss model. Possibly more like Canada. Possibly some kind of hybrid.

That means border checks with Ireland and loss of passporting rights for financial institutions in London. That was the starting negotiating position of the EU btw.

Last edited by JJJ on Wed Feb 21, 2018 11:25 am, edited 1 time in total.

British politics are hilarious (obviously from the outside). Between the ERG letter this morning and

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May is asking the European Union to rethink its plan to end the Brexit transition period that businesses want on the final day of 2020, suggesting such a bridging phase should last as long as it’s needed.

Not the Norway or Swiss model. Possibly more like Canada. Possibly some kind of hybrid.

That means border checks with Ireland and loss of passporting rights for financial institutions in London. That was the starting negotiating position of the EU btw.

The UK government has produced a paper on that very subject. Ireland doesn’t want a hard border. The UK doesn’t want a hard border. The EU claims it doesn’t want a hard border and the government paper has clearly stated that there will be no hard border.

British politics are hilarious (obviously from the outside). Between the ERG letter this morning and

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May is asking the European Union to rethink its plan to end the Brexit transition period that businesses want on the final day of 2020, suggesting such a bridging phase should last as long as it’s needed.

It is a little bit difficult to decide which is more offensive: the stupidity of a Secretary of State who believes that mutual recognition of standards is the answer to EU market access, post-Brexit, or the gullibility of those people who give him a free pass, and treat this as a credible option.

If there was any justice, David Davis would have been openly mocked for his performance in Vienna yesterday. Why did he have to go all that way to deliver such a ridiculous speech?

But it was he who did the mocking, playing down fears that there could be "an Anglo-Saxon race to the bottom with Britain plunged into a Mad Max-style world borrowed from dystopian fiction". Instead of a "regression from the high standards we have now", he anticipated a "race to the top". But, from thereon, though, it was all downhill - all the way to the bottom.

In the official version of his speech, this started with a familiar litany of error. "We start from a position of total alignment, with unprecedented experience in working with one another's regulators and institutions", Davis said. Therefore, "The agreement we strike will not be about how to build convergence, but what we do when one of us chooses to make changes to our rules".

We've heard the like of this before and it is as wrong now as when it was first uttered. Yet Davis keeps trotting it out, despite the fact that it isn't true. The process of leaving the EU is in itself a divergent action. The UK not only steps outside the framework of EU law, it removes itself from the market surveillance system and the entire regulatory infrastructure.

But to demonstrate quite how slender his grasp of reality actually is, Davis then uses as an example a car produced in Austria to be exported to the United Kingdom. Currently, he says, that vehicle only has to undergo one series of approvals, in one country, to show that it meets the required regulatory standards.

Noting that those approvals are accepted across the European Union, he then goes on to say that, "that's exactly the sort of arrangement we want to see maintained even after we leave the European Union".

However, that is precisely the system which is not going to carry over when we leave the EU. This we know because the Commission has already said so in its Notice to Stakeholders - a document clearly unread in the Department of Brexit. Had they cast an eye over it, they would have found that, after Brexit, vehicles approved by the UK authorities will not be approved for sale in EU territories.

The NHS doesn’t deserve a penny more. If I thought it would then I probably would have voted remain. Extra money for the NHS was never promised luckily.

My point is that you are already getting into the whole financially even before Brexit has started.

Even Macron admitted that it would be likely that the French would vote to leave if he gave them the vote.

As others have pointed out to you, that is not what he said.

Just ask Canada. It was made clear that leaving the EU meant leaving the SM but the that doesn’t mean not being able to access it.

since Canada doesn't have access to the single market, what would they know about it.

We already pay billions to be part of the SM and all of our products and standards currently need the protocols necessary to trade with the SM.

As Boris Johnson put it, before he realize to his is a nice way to continue his feud with Cameron, paraphrasing, you pay penuts compared to the economic benefit. As pointed out earlier, 20 billion GDP already lost, 8 billion in tax revenue lost. Per year.You government just tried to hide a study showing that no matter what, even under delusional optimistic assumptions, project fear was right about economics.

I doubt very much the EU would do well to put barriers in place for UK companies to buy EU products and vice versa.

The EU is a much, much more relevant trading partner to the UK than the other way round. But yes, I don't expect much in the way for barriers for UK tourists traveling, aside of needing to pay for the EU equivalent of ESTA.